[Lingtyp] Query: Habitual serial verb constructions

Tue Apr 18 03:47:35 UTC 2023

Dear Sune and others,

In Ross & Lovestrand (2018) and Ross (2021, ch.4) SVCs with posture verbs
are surveyed, and they were found in around 40% of languages with SVCs.
"Posture SVCs" (especially with SIT and STAND, also LIE, and rarely others)
were defined to include both literal posture constructions ("sit and read")
and also grammaticalized, especially aspectual functions (e.g. "sit read"
as progressive or similar). Development of a progressive or similar
function was very common in the sample, while other functions of posture
verbs were rarer. In general, although I did not specifically look for this
in the survey, my impression is that habitual is not a typical function of
posture verbs in SVCs, and also overall I do not think that habitual is a
particularly common function of SVCs in general. On the other hand,
descriptive work on SVCs is generally biased toward "famous" types like SIT
as progressive, so it's possible this is underreported. Regardless, given
the examples so far this appears to be especially frequent in ([Mainland?]
Southeast) Asian languages, so it seems possible to me that it might be a
regional feature rather than a typical pathway for SVCs in general. Already
in these few messages we have examples from elsewhere, so I don't mean it
would be a unique development, but just that it's not the kind of extremely
common development that would be hard to attribute as a regional feature
like some other types of SVCs, such as SIT progressives or TAKE
instrumentals. I imagine that sometimes progressive could further
grammaticalize as habitual, but that doesn't seem to be typical (although
this may also be under-reported).

There is also a murky question for SVCs regarding at which point we would
consider them to be auxiliaries. One overly strict criterion would be to
require a lack of homophony to a lexical verb, which would count English
HAVE perfectives as some kind of lexical construction (not SVC due to form,
but that's beside the point: Anderson 2006 is a relevant survey of
auxiliaries, finding that 'Auxiliary Verb Constructions' can be of
essentially any form, including all of those commonly associated with
"SVCs"). In this case, my instinct would be to say that this is a
relatively grammaticalized function, although again that's just my
impression from general familiarity with SVCs, not too much with this
specific type. We could similarly consider SIT progressives to be auxiliary
constructions, except that there seems to be a continuum from literal to
grammaticalized usage (see Lødrup 2019 for a detailed analysis of a similar
construction where it isn't clear how bleached it really is). With KNOW
(for example), I don't see a possible continuum via SVCs: in fact, this
seems to be some kind of complementation (paraphrased as "know how to V",
or maybe "be familiar with Ving", later grammaticalizing as habitual). This
complement-taking function of KNOW is explicitly excluded by Haspelmath
(2016: 305). Whether or not we accept that particular argument, this seems
to violate the single-event criterion (however that should be interpreted),
because *knowing how to do something* and *doing that action* are not
co-extensive, so they don't form a macro-event. I can know how to do
something without actually doing it: "I know how to speak Spanish" does not
entail that I am currently speaking Spanish. Interestingly, habitual aspect
similarly actually does not entail that the predicate holds at the current
moment: "I speak Spanish" does not entail "I am speaking Spanish". Overall,
this seems removed from prototypical SVCs and suggests complementation as a
more likely source. I realize that some authors prefer to use "SVC" for
anything that looks like SVCs, especially in languages with many SVCs, but
that is a somewhat loose classification focusing only on form (vs.
function: see Ross 2021 about this specific issue for defining SVCs).

Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2006. Auxiliary verb constructions. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280315.001.0001
Lødrup, Helge. 2019. Pseudocoordination with posture verbs in Mainland
Scandinavian: A grammaticalized progressive construction? Nordic Journal of
Linguistics 42(1). 87–110. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586519000027
Ross, Daniel & Joseph Lovestrand. 2018. What Do Serial Verbs Mean? A
Worldwide Survey. Presented at Syntax of the World’s Languages (SWL) 8,
INALCO, Paris, September 3, 2018.
https://swl8.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/Ross_Lovestrand_SWL8.pdf
Ross, Daniel. 2021. Pseudocoordination, Serial Verb Constructions and
Multi-Verb Predicates: The relationship between form and structure.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Ph.D. dissertation.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546425

I hope those notes may be helpful!
Daniel

On Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 7:33 PM Laura Arnold <Laura.Arnold at ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Eva, dear Sune,
>
> Ambel (Austronesian > South Halmahera-West New Guinea) is another
> example—in this case, the SVCs contain the element *hey* 'good'. These
> are functionally very similar to the Papuan Malay *taw* constructions,
> and speakers often use the *taw *constructions to translate the Ambel
> *hey* constructions. There are further details in section 13.1.3.2
> (especially p550) of the Ambel grammar:
> https://laura-arnold.org/documents/Arnold_2018_AGrammarOfAmbel.pdf
>
> Several other nearby languages have similar constructions using 'good',
> which may also be analysable as SVCs. Let me know if you'd like further
> information.
>
> All the best,
> Laura
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Sune Gregersen <s.gregersen at isfas.uni-kiel.de>
> *Sent:* Monday, April 17, 2023 09:20
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject:* [Lingtyp] Query: Habitual serial verb constructions
>
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>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> In connection with an investigation of habitual markers, we are looking
> for information on languages which use serial verb constructions (SVCs) to
> express habitual meaning, i.e. for customarily or typically recurring
> situations. An example of this is seen in (1), from Papuan Malay [ISO
> 639-3: pmy], where the verb *taw* can be combined with another verb to
> express a habitual situation. Outside of this construction, the verb *taw*
> means 'know', as in (2):
>
> (1) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 8)
> *dong taw maing foli*
> 3PL know play volleyball
> 'they habitually play volleyball'
>
> (2) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 7)
> *mama de blum taw tempat itu*
> mother 3SG not.yet know place DISTAL.DEM
> 'mother doesn’t yet know that place'
>
> We adhere to the definition of SVC offered by Haspelmath (2016: 296): "a
> monoclausal construction consisting of multiple independent verbs with no
> element linking them and with no predicate–argument relation between the
> verbs".
>
> That the verbs must be "independent" means that they must be able to occur
> on their own in a non-elliptical utterance (see Haspelmath [2016: 302–304]
> for details). This does not exclude the possibility that the verbs in a SVC
> are pronounced as a single phonological word. Hence the definition also
> covers some constructions which may be termed differently in grammars, e.g.
> "verb incorporation", "verbal compounds", or "secondary verbs". An example
> of such a SVC is seen in (3) from Northern Paiute [pao]. The combination of
> 'kill' with *čakwi*, literally 'carry', gives the habitual meaning 'would
> kill'. However, 'carry' may also be used as an independent verb, as shown
> in (4):
>
> (3) Northern Paiute (Thornes 2003: 266)
> *nɨnmi kammɨ koi-čakwi *
> 1.EXCL jackrabbit kill.PL-carry
> 'We would kill jackrabbits.'
>
> (4) Northern Paiute (Snapp et al. 1982: 68)
> *baa-huu-na i gunna pa-to-ǰakwi-kɨ-kwɨnai-hu*
> water-flow-SUBORD my wood water-shoulder-carry-APPLIC-away-PUNCTUAL
> 'The flood carried away my wood.'
>
> Apart from Papuan Malay and Northern Paiute, we have examples from the
> following languages so far: Anamuxra [imi], Dumo [vam], Kwomtari [kwo], Lao
> [lao], Sezo [sze], Tariana [tae], and Yace [ekr]. We would be most grateful
> for any information on other habitual serial verb constructions, including
> verbal compounds, in any language of the world.
>
> With all best wishes,
> Eva van Lier (Amsterdam) and Sune Gregersen (Kiel)
>
>
> REFERENCES
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2016. The serial verb construction: Comparative
> concept and cross-linguistic generalizations. Language and Linguistics
> 17(3). 291–319. https://doi.org/10.1177/2397002215626895
>
> Kluge, Angela. 2023. Serial verb constructions in Papuan Malay: Forms,
> functions and indeterminacy. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics
> Society 16(1). 1–36. http://hdl.handle.net/10524/52507
>
> Snapp, Allen, John Anderson & Joy Anderson. 1982. Northern Paiute. In
> Ronald W. Langacker (ed.), Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar 3: Uto-Aztecan
> grammatical sketches, 1-92. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
> https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/8593
>
> Thornes, Timothy Jon. 2003. A Northern Paiute grammar and texts. Doctoral
> dissertation, University of Oregon.
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